Given Joss' feminist credentials and the gender issues explored in so many of his works, I really cringe at seeing a link with 'Playboy' in it on this site's main page. If that's just me, I'll be quiet now.

I actually thought the same thing and don't have any problem if the mods want to take it down; put it up since the one thing they contribute to the world is somewhat unpredictable celebrity interviews and this is one of those (with relevant discussion to an upcoming Joss project).

I too bow to the decisions of our beloved moderators, but Whedonverse alums having involvement with Playboy - whether interviews or pictorials - and having links to said product posted without removal has a precedent with both Mercedes McNab and Charisma Carpenter's pictorials (and Kristy Swanson's, if you wanna get nitpicky) and interviews with RDJ and SLJ in the past.

I'm personally on the fence when to matters like this...I have read Playboy for the pictorials when I was a hormonal lad, and the articles once I moved a tad past brainless ogling, so I can't be hypocritical and denounce informing this site's membership about Spader sitting down for a famous Playboy interview to allow those interested to partake. However, I do understand that there is a conflict of interest here, to a certain extent.

Playboy is what it is, whether you're there for the articles or pictures. But Playboy does publish interesting articles and interviews, and it's not in poor taste to link to them. It is up to each member to decide whether going to playboy's website is an acceptable price to pay to read whatever is linked. I'm largely against censorship and would rather any articles linking to playboy simply state the source in the title (like this one does) so we know to not access the site at work and when kids are around (because then the doorbell rings or there's a phone call and you step away and the kids see a computer to play with and whoops!)

ETA: I just finished reading it, and it's delightful. He had such an interesting perspective on acting and the work it requires. The information on Age of Ultron is slight, but important. But I found it to be an interesting article overall.

If you're averse to clicking on the link, here is the part about Age of Ultron. Before this, he talks about his renewed friendship with RDJ through this movie (it's the first one they've worked together on in decades):

PLAYBOY: Like Robert Downey Jr. or Mark Ruffalo, you’re not necessarily an obvious choice to star in an epic Marvel movie reportedly budgeted upwards of $250 million. For those not up on their Marvel lore, who is Ultron, your character in the movie?

SPADER: I play an eight-foot-tall robot. In some ways Ultron’s a child, a brand-new being, a newly created artificial intelligence, and that intelligence is vast. He’s incredibly powerful. I had no idea about the character. [Director] Joss Whedon told me he loved that Ultron was sort of an iconic bad guy in the Avengers universe, but he also loved the idea of departing from the comic book, in which Ultron is just sort of, “I will destroy you!” and instead try to get to the root and the source of what he’s about. I don’t know if I can say anything more. I have no idea whether what I’ve said is part of the confidentiality agreement or not.

PLAYBOY: Did you have any reservations about doing the movie?

SPADER: I told them, “I’m very conscious that how your character enters this universe is very important. You’re not going to enter twice, so I want to make sure it’s the best entrance.” They said, “The title of the movie is Avengers: Age of Ultron. You’re Ultron. That’s the best entrance anyone can have.”

PLAYBOY: We’re going to assume that audiences will hear plenty of your distinctive voice, but will we actually see you under all the digital performance capture?

SPADER: We’ll see. I worked on this with Andy Serkis’s company right from the start. Andy is a great actor, and I have a scene with him, which I am excited about. I mean, here I am well into a fourth decade of acting and now facing filmmaking processes I was completely unfamiliar with. Making this movie is a grand adventure.

I'm pretty sure interviews from Playboy have been posted here before. In fact several Whedon actresses have posed for it. I didn't know people still got bent out of shape over the name 'Playboy'. I see women wearing that logo all the time. This is the year 2014 right?

People who still get bent out of shape over Playboy, or think that people "don't read" it, need to do a little reality checking. All it takes is to Google "playboy interviews". Spader is in impressive company.